List of animation studios owned by the Walt Disney Company
has owned and operated several animation studios since the company's founding on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio; the current Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California is the company's flagship feature animation studio and claims heritage from this original studio. Adding to the growth of the company and its motion picture studio division the Walt Disney Studios, several other animation studios were added through acquisitions and through openings of satellite studios outside the United States. These expanded the company's animation output into television, direct-to-video, and digital releases, in addition to its primary feature animation releases.
Currently Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm Animation and 20th Century Studios's animation division are parts of the Walt Disney Studios unit. This article does not include other animation studios whose films were released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and not acquired by the company, nor does it count the Laugh-O-Gram Studio, Disney's first animation studio, which predated the founding of the Walt Disney Company. For example, certain Studio Ghibli films were distributed by Disney internationally but never owned by the company. Also, Miramax, an independently operating unit of the Walt Disney Studios, also purchased US rights to foreign animated movies.
Full list
Current animation studios
Divested or defunct animation studios
Divested or defunct animation units
Walt Disney Studios
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida
Disneytoon Studios
Disneytoon Studios, formerly Disney Movietoons, was an American animation studio owned by the Walt Disney Company, responsible for producing direct-to-video and occasional theatrical films for Disney Animation Studios, a part of the Walt Disney Studios.[|Disney Circle 7 Animation]
Circle 7 Animation, or Disney Circle 7 Animation, was a short-lived division of Walt Disney Feature Animation specializing in CGI animation and was originally going to work on making sequels to the Disney-owned Pixar properties, leading rivals and animators to derisively nickname the division "Pixaren't". The company released no movies during its tenure.Steve Jobs, Pixar CEO, announced in January 2004 that Pixar would not renew their agreement with Disney and would seek out other distributors for releases starting in 2006. In 2004, Disney Circle 7 Animation was formed as a CG animation studio to create sequels to the Disney-owned Pixar properties. In late January 2006, new Disney CEO Bob Iger and Jobs agreed to have Disney purchase Pixar which led to Disney closing Circle 7.
The Secret Lab
The Secret Lab was an American special effects company that operated from 1979 to 2002, and was the result of a merger between Dream Quest Images and Walt Disney Feature Animation's Computer Graphics division.Dream Quest was founded in a Santa Monica, California garage in 1979 by Hoyt Yeatman, Scott Squires, Rocco Gioffre, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister. Initially, they did piecemeal work on Escape from New York, ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and One From the Heart before moving to Culver City. DQ Films, the company's television commercial production division, remained in Santa Monica. In 1987, DQI model-making operations moved into a Simi Valley industrial park with most of the company following them later on. Their work on The Abyss and Total Recall each earned the company an Academy Award
The Walt Disney Company purchased the company in April 1996 and subsequently moved it to Burbank, California. DQI was purchased to replace Buena Vista Visual Effects. Soon after 1997, Andrew Millstein was appointed general manager of the company.
In October 1999, Dream Quest Images merged with Walt Disney Feature Animation's computer graphics division to form The Secret Lab, with Millstein continuing as general manager and vice president. The DQI and WDFA units were moved into a new location at Disney's Northside facility on Thornton Avenue just east of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport, Lockheed Corp.'s former Skunk Works Building 90 until it was renovated for WDFA's headquarters in 1995. DQI's physical production facilities remained in Simi Valley.
The Secret Lab produced one CG animated motion picture, Dinosaur, in 2000. After Dinosaur, the Lab and WDFA began working on Wildlife, which was canceled that September.
The Lab being passed over for Disney work led to the unit being closed in 2002. The Secret Lab's last work with Disney was for the Touchstone Pictures/Spyglass Entertainment film Reign of Fire and the Castle Rock Entertainment/Warner Bros. comedy Kangaroo Jack. An artist at The Secret Lab purportedly confided to Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News that the studio was shut down by Disney when it proved to be too expensive.
VFXography
Pixar
Pixar is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the computer division of Lucasfilm before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986 with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder. Pixar and Disney had a seven feature agreement that allowed Disney to distribute the films with Disney owing the character rights. With the success of Toy Story 2 in 1999, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs began to disagree on how Pixar should be run and the terms of their continued relationship. Eisner claimed that Toy Story 2 would not count towards the "original" film count of the agreement. Jobs announced in January 2004 that Pixar would not renew their agreement with Disney and would seek out other distributors for releases starting in 2006. In 2004, Disney Circle 7 Animation was formed as a CG animation studio to create sequels to the Disney-owned Pixar properties. In late January 2006, new Disney CEO Bob Iger and Jobs agreed to have Disney purchase Pixar which led to Disney closing Circle 7.Pixar Canada
Marvel Studios
Marvel Animation
With Disney's 2009 purchase of Marvel Entertainment, Disney acquired Marvel Animation, a component of Marvel Entertainment. which now has a studio in Glendale, California. The studio became a Marvel Studios subisdiary after Kevin Feige was named chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment.Marvel Studios Animation
In July 2021, Marvel Studios opened an in-house animation division named Marvel Studios Animation, though which they would develop mainly animated projects set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in addition to stand-alone projects. Brad Winderbaum as Head of Television, Streaming, and Animation, and Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt as VP of Animation.Lucasfilm Animation
was added as an animation unit as part of the acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012.20th Century Animation
Blue Sky Studios
Distribution deals
In August 1996, Disney and Tokuma Shoten Publishing agreed that Disney would internationally distribute Tokuma's Studio Ghibli animated films. In 2002, Disney signed a four-picture deal with Vanguard Animation, although, only one film was released under that negotiation.Walt Disney Television
Disney Television Animation
Following the arrival of Michael Eisner,Walt Disney Pictures Television Animation Group was established on December 5, 1984. Following re-incorporation of The Walt Disney Company in 1986. The name of the TV animation unit was shortened to Walt Disney Television Animation. the following year in 1987. This name was used to 2011 when it was shortened to Disney Television Animation.In January 2003, Disney initiated a reorganization of its theatrical and animation units to improve resource usage and continued focus on new characters and franchise development. TV Animation was transferred to Disney Channel Worldwide. [|Disney MovieToons/Disney Video Premieres] unit was transferred from Disney Television Animation to Disney Feature Animation.
20th Television Animation
Animation unit which was acquired as part of Acquisition of 21st Century Fox by DisneyDIC Entertainment L.P.
With Disney's acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC in 1995 came another animated unit, DIC Entertainment L.P., a Limited Partnership with CC/ABC and Andy Heyward. Eventually, DIC management arranged for the studio to become independent from Disney in 2001.Greengrass Productions
is a unit of ABC at the time CC/ABC was acquired by Disney and produced some animation.Jetix related
Disney purchased the Fox Family/Fox Kids Worldwide franchise on October 24, 2001, for the Fox Family Channel and also received ownership of several units and assets, including Saban Entertainment and Saban International. The Saban library also included the 75.7% majority stake in Fox Kids Europe N.V., the Latin American Fox Kids channel, Saban International Paris, Saban International Services, various original Fox Kids programming, and the acquired all-original and Marvel Comics-based DePatie-Freleng Enterprises/Marvel Productions and Marvel Films Animation/New World Animation libraries. Afterwards, Saban International Paris split from Saban and became independent, with the Walt Disney Company taking in a 49% minority stake of the company and a name change to SIP Animation on October 1, 2002. Jetix Animation Concepts was a joint-venture between Walt Disney Television Animation and Jetix Europe N.V. for shows that broadcast for the Jetix channels.- Jetix Animation Concepts - joint-venture between Jetix Europe N.V. and Walt Disney Television Animation
- BVS Entertainment
- * BVS International, N.V.
- * BVS International Services, Inc.
- Sensation Animation – dubbing for the second half of Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier. Although, it was ceased and dissolved in 2003, Disney co-distributed the previously undubbed four Digimon movies in 2005 and the fifth TV season in 2007.
- SIP Animation - 49% minority stake owned by Disney
- Jetix Europe - 75.7% owned by Disney until 2008, full ownership afterwards. Currently dormant.